John McCain Offers Wife For "Miss Buffalo Chip" Topless Beauty Contest

John McCain Offers Wife For "Miss Buffalo Chip" Topless Beauty Contest

(No, that's not her)

You're not going to believe this, but Senator John McCain, speaking at the annual biker convention the Sturgis Bike Rally said

“I was looking at the Sturgis schedule and noticed that you have a beauty pageant and so I encouraged Cindy to compete,” McCain said to cheers from the (mostly male) crowd. “With a little luck, she could be on the only woman ever to serve as both the first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.”

You don't believe it? See this video; it's all there:



What is so troubling is that this is the first time in my life, I've seen the role of first lady be reduced -- REDUCED -- to that of topless beauty model. That's what the Miss Buffalo Chip contest is about.

It's an insult to anyone with a level head. It's an insult to the inititution of the President of The United States, and an insult to all American ideals.

Senator McCain should appologize to his wife and America. Moreover, I can't believe Cindy McCain just stood there and waved her hand to the crowd.

Oh, and then the crowd yells "Show us your boobs!" It's in the video!

I can't believe I'm writing this. But it happened. What a disgrace.

The Commish Speaks on rookie salaries

Goodell speaks out on rookie salaries By Ralph Garcia for Football Reporters Online 8/1/08

Several weeks back, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell made his feelings about the rookie pay scale known. He called it ridiculous and rightfully so. Well no kidding commish. I like that he mentions a system where the younger players can renegotiate their contracts after they have proven themselves.

He made another great point when he said that when the last CBA was approved no one took into consideration the hit the economy would take. The affect it had later has made us want for the old days. We need to get back to the days where a player would earn his money by his play. Now these days we are losing core players. Players that have taken these teams to playoffs and made their mark in the league are being lost to the salary given to unproven talent.

In the past you would have to work hard to earn your pay and now all you have to do is have a great college career and you are set for life. Forget the player that has settled his family in a city and then has to move on a couple of years later due to the cap. So a big applause to the commish and lets hope something can be worked out where the rookies get their money and those who have worked for theirs get paid right then and there. Where you earn your keep and not get paid for what you have not earned yet.

The Scheme in Team Salary

The Scheme in Team Salary

July 31, 2008

By Slavica Milosevska for Football Reporters Online

Since Walter Camp in 1867 established a simple game of football to just play for fun, nothing about it has been the same. Point rules, regulations, salaries and politics have grown into what is now the NFL. William Pudge Heffelfinger was the first man to be paid to play the game for $500 in 1892, then in 1893, the Pittsburgh Athletic Club signed Grant Dibert to the first known contract. Nearly thirty years later in 1920, the first APFA trade was Arkon's Bob Nash to Buffalo for $300 and 5% of all gate receipts. These first timers helped set a precedent for the intricate scheme of revenues and team salaries.
The NFL Players Association (NFLPA) was founded in 1956 when players demanded a minimum league-wide salary and fair benefits. Owners ignored these requests, leading to an antitrust lawsuit in the United States Supreme Court forcing owners to oblige but they still managed to deviate from a CBA, leaving players unsatisfied. The 1982 strike finally led to the ratification of the CBA that lasted until 1987. The NFL and the NFLPA officially signed another seven year CBA in 1993 that has been extended and amended for over two decades. The 2010 season will be uncapped and free agency restrictions are applied because it will be the Final League Year (FLY) of the CBA. Would we see a similar antitrust suit and strike in 2011?
The upcoming FLY was supposed to be in 2012. Owners shortened the 2006 six-year CBA extension to after the 2010 season. To cut costs, owners could attempt locking out players in 2011 to eliminate free agency with its payouts. Clubs would not be required to monetarily support different benefit programs. NFLPA's Executive Director Gene Upshaw predicts that when there is an uncapped season, the salary cap would never come back. A football hierarchy could approach when wealthier teams obtain better athletes and make higher revenues than the less fortunate teams. However, the threat of a lawsuit or strike could rectify something amenable to players.
For the last two years, the salary cap has risen $7 million annually making the 2008 season's hard cap $116,729,000 million. The 2009 cap is already set at $123 million. The cap is just under 60% of all 32 team's total revenue during a League Year including earnings from ticket and merchandise sales, TV contracts, naming rights and local advertising. Coaches, assistants, trainers or associates do not fall under team salary. We all know that players are paid more than handsomely for the love of playing football. In a recent interview, Chicago Bears DT Tommie Harris spoke about players being undeserving because as he put it, “we play a kids game and we get paid a king's ransom.”
An NFL game alone has the most turn out rate of 67,000 attendees in comparison to other American professional sports leagues. Since football has fewer games per season compared to other sports, the total revenue for NFL games in only 20% of baseball, which has a much longer season but less of an average per game crowd. If there were a lockout or strike, teams would lose much more money for missed games because the NFL is so profitable.
Teams still exceed the cap due to rising salaries, but clubs have means of outwitting the system. For instance, signing bonuses do not count toward the cap, so giving a new player a grand signing bonus really enables more cap room for the rest of the team. A signing bonus is given the first year, however it is prorated in the salary cap over the contract length. Team owners can spend more in the cap this way for other players.
One problem for the owners is that if a player is cut or traded the bonus cash is no longer prorated and must be paid in full that year which will count under the cap. Salary is back-ended meaning a player gradually receives more money each year and the most loot in the last year or two of their contract. In the latter, this is when owners will drop players to save money and spend a ridiculous amount of money to sign a rookie with no pro league experience.

Players deserve more compensation year after year for ongoing injuries and risks they impose on their bodies, not to get kicked to the curb. The NFL teams won't stop milking that cap for whatever its worth and not sharing with vets who were their backbone. NFL owners like to say the cap allots teams to sustain their best veterans, but these days, we see rookies with higher pay. Where else have you seen a new employee acquire more compensation than his established co-worker with a job akin?

The Indianapolis Colts owners are the most generous to its veterans according to their positions. In 2007, DE Dwight Freeney signed a $72 million contract with $30 million guaranteed after his rookie contract expired. Freeney played in the pros for five years to deserve this amount when rookie QB Matt Ryan stumbles onto the Atlanta Falcons with guarantees of $34.75 million and also a $72 million deal.

You may say that QBs are generally paid more than DEs.
Well then, look at fellow Falcon teammate QB Joey Harrington's deal. This will be his seventh year in the NFL. He originally signed a two year $6 million deal in 2007, however they cut his salary to adjust the cap for the draft. Harrington was to receive $2.5 million in his second and final season, but the salary cut left him $1 million, a $700,000 base and $300,000 bonus. Here are some other contracts to look at. LT Jake Long was the first draft pick signing on with the Miami Dolphins for $57.75 million and $30 guaranteed. Fourth pick RB Darren McFadden has $26 million in guarantees and a $60 million deal with the Oakland Raiders.

It seems easier for owners to hand over $30 million in guarantees to rookies. Promising veterans are being dropped to stay under the cap. Upshaw doesn't believe in having a salary cap on rookies. Players negotiate their salaries based on a cap within a cap. Under the Rookie Pool this year, the entire league's available cap money is $140 million or 2% of total revenues. The first round pick is paid the highest amount unlike later round draft picks because they are working under a limited budget. Rookie salary also depends on contract length, so the first 16 picks of first-round draft obtain a six-year contract in contrast to second half of first round picks that get a maximum of 5 years. All others sign for a maximum of 4 years. Rookies can negotiate performance incentives to escalate salary as well. The CBA has guidelines for this not to be deducted from the overall Rookie Pool.

The guidelines do not apply with the CBA out of the picture. When 2011 rolls around, many issues would arise for everyone involved in the NLF. More than 60% of total revenues could go to players. Owners could stock up on players and would be free to spend without restrictions. Rookie contracts would go up even though that has been constant. Revenue sharing would no longer disperse equally throughout all 32 teams, so clubs with the most leverage could have better players and be more profitable. Since football is such a large part of the American culture and the NFL is a jackpot and with the greed in the business associates, a strike is unlikely.

Zennie Abraham To Be Featured on CNN Aug 20-21

Well it turns out that I will be a featured vlogger on CNN as part of
their Democratic Convention coverage starting August 20-21. Stay
tuned!!

Sent from my iPhone

DNC Convention Invesco Tour | CNN Grill | Pepsi Media Tent City

On the morning of July 31st 2008, I boarded a United Airlines morning flight to Denver to attend the final (?) media walkthrough before the Democratic National Convention, this one at Invesco Field.

Unlike my first media walkthrough trip, I ended up renting a Saturn SUV for ground travel. The reason was simple: it was cheap. Cheaper to rent than a Prius and because they were in low demand versus the economy cars. In a way it worked out to a savings of about $25. Invesco Field was only 20 minutes away from the airport, so it was a quick trip for me.

I arrived at Invesco at 11:20 and ran into a DNCC employee (who I will not name by request) and who walked me around the stadium (we ended up on the field at one point) and eventually into the main briefing meeting.

For security reasons I did not film the main meeting discussion, but focused more on the 'broadbrush" tour and interviews of key media people there. On the way to the main press box, I met "Oreo" who's one of the main contributors at DemConWatchBlog.com and talked about how the blog came to be and who the writers were. To my surprise, one of them was a person who had his own blog called "Mr. Superdelegate" for a time, and gave all of us political junkies fits trying to figure out who he was. It's become a great resource for DNC Convention news.

After talking with Oreo, and heading to the main field, I met Sara Burrett, who's a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News. Sara -- who I talked to while tripping all over myself on the Invesco Field sidewalk -- told me that she was a court reporter until this assignment and that her current focus was on the lawsuit the protest group Recreate68 and their leader Glen Spagnuolo, who's known for protesting the Columbus Day Holiday in Denver and for whom a split was caused between his group and other protest groups.

See, even Democratic PROTESTERS can't get along.

But I digress.

Sara also pointed out where Senator Obama will stand to give his acceptance speech, which is about on the 50-yard-line of the field used by The Denver Broncos.

That about ended that part of the tour. But Oreo and I decided to take a tour of our own making. He drove us over to the Pepsi Center area to see the media tent city in the making. Two construction reps let us in and we parked and walked the grounds. The media tents must be about 25,000 square feet in size each, and there were two made already, one for NBC News, the other we didn't know who was for, perhaps CNN.

Writing of CNN, we then walked over to the Brooklyn Grill for a quick lunch. Oreo informed me that the grill was to be transformed into the "CNN Grill" and almost on que, we saw a stencil being used to paint the CNN = Politics logo on the side of the building. They had just got started with this, and we were the first to record the action.

The one problem with the CNN plan is the restaurant workers know nothing about it. They don't know if they will be paid double-time or who will get to work the shifts, or anything and they're getting a little nervous about the whole deal.

Then, on the way out, Oreo, who lives in Denver, pointed to where the DNC Media Party was to be held over at an amusement park nearby.

In all, the Democratic Party is working overtime to make the DNC Convention work. The objective is open-ness. The main issue now is still scheduling. Contrary to reports, many of the speakers and speaking days have not been fully set. Speculation that Hillary Clinton will not be the VP choice because of the Tuesday "Women's Day" event is faulty at best.

On the way back to the airport, I turned in my rental car and then forgot my iPhone in it. Alamo Rent-A-Car got it back to me very quickly and for that I give thanks.

Bush Legacy: a BAD TASTE in GOP's Mouth

Isn't it ironic that President Bush, once clearly a darling of conservatives and Republicans alike, may come to be, in the words of Ann McFeatters in the Boston Herald, "loathed by most of them."

The problem is that Bush isn't at all what people thought they were voting for. The "Compassionate Conservative" label was the epitome of sound-bite marketing, for openers. Show me any even moderately compassionate initiative Bush championed, and on review you'll find it was driven by pressure from outside, not his own leadership. And the notion you'd vote for him because you'd like to have a beer with him? Nevermind that he doesn't drink anymore: Who really thought they'd like to have a beer with him?

Answer: people who'd like to have a beer with anybody.

Republicans = small government?

When you look at his term of office it seems likely that he was, in essence, a figurehead. Sadly I see President Bush primarily as a puppet of the likes of Cheney & Rumsfeld, who realized Rove had hold of a guy that could be made electable at the national level. There is little on the record to suggest Bush has been a savvy leader with a vision for the betterment of this country.

No, instead the GOP had the drop on the dems in marketing, two cycles in a row. Effective smear attacks from surrogates while their guy appeared to remain above the fray. A dose of fear, a carefully acquired Texas drawl for an Ivy Leaguer from a privileged family... It was brilliant.

Unfortunately, it was brilliance applied to electing a self-interested cabal fronted by a puppet. Bush has presided over some of the most disastrous policies in modern U.S. history - the economy is hanging by a thread as we pour our precious lives and resources into an investment in big oil noguls becoming even richer. And how are the folks atop those companies faring, while the rest of the country deals with unemployment and recession? Oh, right: Their best quarter EVER.

Another irony, of course, is that Rumsfeld has been consigned to the back room somewhere, while Cheney continues as arguably the most powerful Vice President the US has ever seen. Some say the only reason the various calls for impeachment of George W. Bush are not pursued more stridently in congress is the realization that it would lead, at least briefly, to Cheney ascending to sole control of the Oval Office.

Follow the money:

One has to hope that the sense and sensibility of the citizens - and voters - of the USA will help turn the U.S. back from the old-school politics to embrace respect for both the average people as well as the political opposition. There are signs such candor and civility is valued over the increasingly transparent, self-serving "mis-speaking" that has become all too commonplace. We must hold elected officials to a higher standard. It is short-sighted and shallow to tolerate duplicitous, politically expedient apologies after the fact as "expected behavior" though the mainstream media continues to look the other way. We must ask who profits from each decision, be it invading then rebuilding Iraq or stockpiling Tamiflu at taxpayers expense.

The alternative is to continue our slide from prominence toward a second class status on the stage of world affairs. That's not the legacy I want to leave for my offspring - what about you?

read more | digg story

Zennie62 On Vloggerheads.com WIth Kenrg And Renetto

Zennie62 On Vloggerheads.com WIth Kenrg And Renetto

Today -- well, Saturday -- I received an email invitation from YouTuber Ken Goldstein, who you may (or may not) know as Kenrg on YouTube. He was inviting me to join what he and other call a "vlogging experiment" and is called "Vloggerheads."

That would be me.

The site is only eight days -- yes eight days -- old and already there are as of this writing 46 members. Folks like Esther, Beth, and star YouTubers like Renetto, Kenrg, and Gimmeabreakman who made this great video:

Where he tries to answer the question "What is a vlog" from the comfort of a pool he's in somewhere. He even goes underwater for a bit. That means he takes the camera under water -- watch -- how he does that I don't know because if I did that with my Sony camcorder, that would be the end of that machine.

Anyway, I love to share my ideas on video, but I want to get paid for it too. YouTube allows that; I just have to see his improvement. his viewpoint. I'm not giving up on YouTube at all. I think this can enhance the total experience of videoblogging and increase the visility of YouTubers at the same time.

NFL Hall Of Fame Day: Art Monk, Fred Dean, Emmitt Thomas, Gary Zimmerman, Darrel Green

NFL Hall Of Fame Days is always a moving event, and 2008 is no exception. Today, Art Monk, Fred Dean, Emmitt Thomas, Gary Zimmerman, Darrel Green are being inducted into Canton. I'm watching it now on NFL Network.

Gallup Fixing Polls Again? McCain Backers Older; College Students Ignored

The Gallup Poll for Friday reports a tie between John McCain and Barack Obama at 44 percent fo the first time, but I'm really skeptical of this because Gallup's Frank Newport came under fire for having a USA Today-Gallup lead for McCain, but not one for it's own daily polling.

Frank Newport has this nasty habit of ignoring college-age voters, which have been so important in this election. College-age voter turnout increased by as much as 20 to 25 percent during the 2008 primaries, and there's no reason to think this will not continue into the November election.

But Newport and his Gallup people misses this group. For example, this Gallup article on Obama and the highly educated focuses on adults out of college -- that's people who are older than 26 years old and more likely in their 40s and 50s and 60s. That's where McCain sees gains.

But it's wrong.

Obama Election Victory Predicted By Economic Models

AOL -- the conservative place on the Internet -- ran this article reporting three separate economic models predicting November election victory for Senator Barack Obama. The reason is that the Economy is in terrible shape and it's a subject Obama scores better than McCain on in polling.

But of course, AOL being well, Southern (based in Virginia) and stupid (because they appeal to racist-tendencies) they had to run a poll asking who viewers wanted to win.

Most of the AOLers picked McCain by ten percent or so. But then AOL's known for being racist and having racist viewers, so go figure.

Commission Junction: Never Made Money Off CJ.Com; Now I Know Why

Commission Junction: Never Made Money Off CJ.Com; Now I Know Why

Class action lawsuit reveals abuses of the affiliate marketing industry.

Yep. Commission Junction, the pioneering affiliate marketing company, is involved in a nasty lawsuit. Here are the details:

If you joined or were a member of the affiliate marketing networks operated by ValueClick, Inc., Commission Junction, Inc. and/or Be Free (collectively, “Defendants”), between April 20, 2003 and the present, you may be a class member in Settlement Recovery Center et al. v. ValueClick, Inc. et al., No. 2:07-cv-02638-FMC-CTx, a lawsuit which is pending in the Central District of California. The Settlement Notice informs you of the Court's certification of a class for settlement purposes; the nature of the claims alleged; your right to participate in, or exclude yourself from, the class; a proposed settlement; and how you can claim an award of advertising credits under the settlement or object to the settlement.

The proposed settlement will resolve claims that Defendants failed to adequately monitor Commission Junction’s Network for the use by third parties of software that does not comply with Commission Junction’s (“CJ”) Publisher Code of Conduct and that is intended to steal or divert commissions from publishers on CJ’s network (“Non-compliant Software”), failed to adequately monitor or prevent third parties from engaging in the theft or “hijacking” of commissions from Advertisers and Publishers on CJ’s Network, and failed to make sufficient disclosures regarding the existence of Non-compliant Software and commission theft, resulting in losses to both advertisers and publishers on the CJ Network.

The proposed settlement will provide a monetary recovery to eligible class members. For class members that currently maintain an account on the CJ Network will receive payment through payments or credits deposited or applied to their CJ accounts; eligible class members that no longer have accounts on the Commission Junction Network will receive a check for an equal amount.

Back From Denver and Invesco Field Tour and New Protestor News

Ok. I'm back from Denver and Invesco Field and a great tour and also meetup and walkthrough with Oreo of the great blog DemConWatchBlog.com Lots of news to report, which I will do in a separate blog.

But some teasing.

I learned that the total convention schedule is not finalized and that the media's premature in what it's reporting -- not that the Hillary Clinton speak date is wrong -- there's more to come.

Invesco Field itself is a huge and well-equipped facility that makes me wish Oakland would wake up and rebuild the Oakland / Alameda County Coliseum. It has miles of storage space, wide cooridors, and a new smell -- still.

I also learned that protest groups have filed suit to be closer to the convention than they are. But as you will see in my upcoming video from my trip, they're pretty close already!!

I also discovered that the best Spinach Salad's at Brooklyn's bar and grill next to Pepsi Center, and that the facility will become "The Politics Grill" by CNN. And while the link is informative on this matter, it does not do it justice as a video would. I even discovered folks working on turning it into the "CNN Grill."

Theu should have bloggers in it. Like us.

Stay tuned for that.